


A Complicated Evening

by afteriwake



Series: Unexpected Legacies [9]
Category: Arthurian Mythology, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awesome Molly, BAMF Molly, Case Fic, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Dark Magic, Established Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, Gen, Injured Molly, Magic-Users, Magical Molly, Magical Sherlock, Masks, Molly Saves the Day, POV Sherlock Holmes, Poor Molly, Shapeshifting, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Has a Plan, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes Has a Heart, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Sherlock-centric, not according to plan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 03:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8429677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: One of Sherlock’s normal cases becomes one of the strange ones, and while it has a satisfactory end, it doesn’t have the best of endings for everyone.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonstone1520](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstone1520/gifts).



> So this was written for my friend **moonstone1520** , who had wanted a Sherlolly fic with the prompt " _A floorboard creaked._ " This is also an entry for the 2016 round of the Spook Me Ficathon, inspired by [this picture](https://s15.postimg.org/rzt5sp8nf/Shapeshifter_1.jpg) by an unknown artist. I hope you enjoy!

“Who plans a masquerade ball any time other than Halloween?” John muttered, looking around the room. 

“Many people, but in this instance, it’s someone with dark intentions,” Sherlock said, adjusting the domino mask on his face. He was standing by John’s side, surveying the room but keeping a close eye on Molly, who was dancing with their client. This case had originally started as one of their normal cases, a theft of some art and antiques, but when Sherlock was checking out the scene of the crime he kept feeling a strange pull to a hidden room. Some intervention with Merlin later and they found out the wife of their victim was a practitioner of the Dark Arts and what had _really_ been taken was a special mask and gloves that allowed its wearer to become a shape-shifter.

Sherlock had put out discrete inquiries about acquiring the mask, and the invitation to the auction at the ball had arrived in the mail. He had been asked to bring both John and Molly so he knew this was a trap, but the three of them were well-prepared.

Or so he hoped.

He glanced at the watch on his wrist. It was nearly midnight. “You’ll keep an eye on Molly?” Sherlock asked John.

John nodded. “The sigils sewn into her gown are supposed to keep her safe, though, right?”

“Yes, but she needs to stay in physical contact with Wainwright. If we’re right about this, his wife engineered the theft of her own mask to get the money to divorce her husband. When I steal it out from under her and then destroy it, she may resort to outright murdering him to get his insurance. She’s able to use dark magic to make the murder seem like an accident.” He paused. “Or else she may just try and kill everyone in the building, in which case you need to get the two of them out to save everyone else. There may be dark magic users in the room but there are innocents as well.”

John gave him a look. “Does it feel...wrong? Saving people you know are working for the entity trying to kill you?”

Sherlock shrugged slightly. “There are far more people in this room who have no clue the true nature of this ball. As far as they are concerned, this is a fundraiser for the Queen’s Trust. It just goes to show how some of the rich and powerful become so.”

“Do you ever wonder if you...or Molly…?” John asked.

Sherlock ignored the question as his watch showed him it was quarter to midnight. He shook his head and moved away, heading towards the private rooms in the manor. He had used some of the magic potions that Merlin was teaching him to make that changed his identity to case the home earlier, posing as various members of staff setting up the event, to gain access to different sections of the manor home. He had learned the details of the home, including all the secret entrances and passageways and where they led. He knew exactly where the mask was, and he knew how to bring down the wards keeping it safe. It was almost like child’s play.

He slipped into the room he needed to go to and was making his way to the panel he needed to open when he heard a creaking floorboard behind him. He turned and saw Wainwright’s wife behind him, standing naked with the bird-beaked mask askew on her head and Molly held tightly to her side, the razor sharp claws of the gloves held to Molly’s throat. “Did you really think I was so foolish that I didn’t see through your piddly disguises, Warlock?” she spat out. She pressed the edge of the claw tighter to Molly’s throat. “You seek to destroy my mask. You try to take what’s mine, I’ll take what’s yours.”

Sherlock felt ice run through his veins. “No,” he said.

“You wish,” Molly said, and then Wainwright’s wife went stiff and shook a bit, and then the claw dropped from her grip on Molly's neck. She collapsed and Molly turned to look down at her, and only then Sherlock saw that Molly had a taser in her hand.

“How did you…?” he asked.

“She wasn’t leading,” Molly said, reaching up to touch her neck with her other hand. “In all the dances, she kept trying to make me lead. I knew right off I was dancing with another woman, so when I went to ‘powder my nose’ for a moment I slipped the taser Greg gave me into my pocket.”

“Your dress has pockets?” Sherlock asked with a small smile.

She gave him a wide grin. “Merlin at least understands that pockets in dresses come in handy.” She pulled her hand away from her neck. “It looks like the edge of her claw nicked my neck just slightly.”

“I can heal that,” he said as he came over.

“I know,” she replied. “But destroy the mask and gloves before anyone else gets the same bright idea you did to try and nick it before the auction. Not everyone else is going to have the good intention to destroy it.” 

Sherlock nodded. He could have cast a spell to burn it in a similar fire that he had used to destroy the insects which had infested Molly’s home, but there was an actual fire in a fireplace in the room and that would be even better. He removed the mask from Mrs. Wainwright’s head as Molly pulled the gloves off her hands, kicking her in the side as she did, and then the two of them took the items to the fire. They tossed them into the flames and Sherlock bent down, lacing his hands in front of the fire, focusing on the items. “ _Combustio_ ,” he said, feeling Molly’s fingers curl into his shoulder and her loan him her strength and some of her own power. The flames grew hotter and the items began to grow white hot.

Soon there was a strangled cry from behind them, and he could feel Molly turn and mutter something herself, but he concentrated on repeating the Latin words until the mask and gloves were nothing more than ash, then he put the fire out and reached into the fireplace, crushing the burnt objects and then casting the transportation spell to send it someplace windy. Finally, there was one last anguished cry from behind him and he felt Molly stumble. He turned and she fell into his lap. “Are you alright?” he asked.

She gestured behind him. “I think there was more of her attached to that mask and gloves than we thought,” she said quietly, curling into him slightly.

He looked and saw Mrs. Wainwright had been reduced to merely a figure of ash, and he held Molly tighter. “Was she…?” he asked, and Molly nodded, burying her head into his shoulder. He stroked her hair back. He had the feeling the two of them would see things neither of them wanted to see in the course of their time taking these cases, and he was just saddened that tonight she had to see that. He pressed a kiss into her hair. “Let’s go back to Baker Street.”

“All right,” she said. He knew there may be more repercussions from this case, that the people who had hoped to possess the mask and gloves would come after him for destroying them, that he would have to deal with Wainwright sooner or later, but, for now, his concern was Molly. His primary concern would always be Molly, until the day she died. He knew that now, and wondered exactly what that meant for them.


End file.
